Hey Ezi,

What diff are you running in there, are you still running the IRS?

Cheers

 

yup still running the stock irs no issues so far other than the torque is a bit hard on bushings.
its a salsbury diff inboard breaks with a 3.54 gear

 

Parking lot road racing, is on of the most challenging things, the average guy can do with his car. It will separate the wannabes, from the rest of the group rather quickly. In the end, you end up having a great time, and usually didn't tear up your sh-t, and it didn't cost you thousands of dollars. Then guess what. You get to come back, and try again another day. Hoping to get some of the egg off you face. from your first time. Hey, even "Mario" wasn't fast, his first time. LOL!!! "Just Do It"

Way to go EZ. Looks like you had a blast. Looking forward to more.

Jack

 

lol by the end of the event i was running pretty solidly mid pack. for a car that's not built specifically for the event and being the 3rd oldest car there and 2nd oldest by design. (by 1993 the jag was already a dated design) and considering it was the first time iv ever run that car on anything even resembling a handling course i think it was a pretty good showing. there is still a lot of room to do even better without even making any changes to the car. you almost have to expect do do poorly your first few times around the course under the circumstances.




it was a heak of a lot of fun for probably $60 total, was $45 dollars for entry fees and then probably 10 bucks in gas including driving there and driving home.




considering autocross is dominated by lightweight small low horsepower cars "cough cough" miatias..... i had no delusions of placing first in my over powered stock chassis car that weights nearly 2 tons with the only real meaningful mod for the event being modern rim size and summer performance tires that are really more a mid level tires as far as autocross tires goes. the class i was running due to the drive train modifications allows full on racing slicks and fully custom modified suspension and chassis (not a street car class) it was more about just going out and having some fun. the fact that i was able to put down a few lap times in the end that were competitive with some modern respectable performance cars i think the car did respectably well over all considering.

 

did another autocross in the jag this last weekend. did a lot better this time i was only 7 seconds off the fastest car vrs 19 seconds last time...lol a little shorter course this time though. a few less cars this weekend and the shorter course did get a lot more runs in.

only change on the car itself is im now running it on straight e-85. as methonol is not allowed in scca last time i was spraying straight water trying to control iat's and the blower was heat soaking bad. much much better on e85 and was able to put some timing back in it.


almost spun in in this clip but managed to save it without going off course or hitting any cones. of course that miss hap killed my time on that run.


after the event i did a couple fun runs that didn't count for competition and got a time that was only 5 seconds off the fastest time durring compitition.




on another one of the fun runs. i spun it 180 just before the Finnish line, tires were spinning a little bit around the last tiny jog before the finnish line and i thoguht i could hold it and kept it matted just about crossed the Finnish line facing backwards....lol and i was hitting over 60mph crossing the Finnish line on most runs.

unfortunately i didn't record any video of the fun runs as i kept forgetting to turn off the camera's between runs so the memory cards were full and the battery's were dead and i didn't feel like changing them....lol

 

Hard to keep your foot out of it. You know you need to, but it's so Damn much fun to plant it to the floor! Dad said Throttle control was the toughest part, of learning how to really drive a "Race Car"

You did good man.

Jack

 

theirs defiantly still faster passes in it without changing anything. and your defiantly right about keeping your foot out of it. tight and clean is defiantly faster than fast and loose...lol knowing im slower threw the corners than some and have lots of power on tap you feel like you have to try to use it to make up for the lost time threw the corners but its really easy to over cook it and the time gained on the places you can step on it is easly lost x10 if your not tight and clean threw the corner. it would be comical if this was actually wheel to wheel. i would absolutely dominate on the acceleration parts of the track and get my *** wooped everywhere else.

most of the handling course experience i have although by no means a expert maybe a few hundred laps. its all actual road course where your lapping lap after lap without stopping and you can get settled into a rhythm . determine breaking zones and lines and i find it really hard to get in a rhythm on a autocross running one lap at a time. being that the car is a bit of a handful to start with makes it even harder. its still a ton of fun.

plan is to take it to the drag strip next weekened. never been to the track im planning on though a little concerned about tech due to being a convertible with no roll cage theirs a couple other little things they might sweat me on too. iv never been to that track so not sure how there going to be but the track i used to run at years ago im pretty sure id be just fine. if they sweat me in tech ill probably sand bag a few passes to get my best 60' figured out before running a full pass just in case they kick me out.....lol ill be on street tires so i wont be setting the world on fire anyway but hoping for a 120+mph trap speed

 

if you screw up and spin out might as well put on a show....lol


tried to take it drag racing a couple weeks ago unfortunately the track rained out. will try again in a few more weeks on the next test and tune day.

all the local autocross events are done for the year now. there is a couple more if i were to travel. its a lot harder to fit that into my schedule though. car is still running strong without any issues. ill probably try to put together a actual video on the 2nd and 3rd autocross events i went to.

i think im going to be looking at upgrading the front sway bar and adding a rear as well as upgrading to gaz adjustable shocks. i think those changes will really help me out on the autocross although its still a ton of fun. looking forward to seeing the official results on this last one, i don't know if it was because it was cloudy and cool and the ashpalt was cold but i seemed to be really struggling to find any grip this last time out. so out of all my runs today only a couple were good clean runs but i think i still improved yet again in my overall standings.

 

Hey EZ search the forum as there are several posting on the rear end modifications such as anchoring it as to control movement. i was trying to remember if I'd seen one about sway bars for the rear???

Jack

 

here is the sway bars i was considering.
Jaguar XJS, XJ6, XKE and XJ12 Suspension Kit Upgrades from V12 Performance

want to be careful stiffening the rear. the car is far more prone to over steer than under steer, only time it really under steers is braking too hard in a sweeper corner, feather up off the breaks a bit and the front will grip back up. you want the end that needs the most traction to have the softer suspension. but the upgrade to a 1 inch front sway bar and adding a rear sway bar would probably help quite a bit. the car rolls like a boat in the high seas when driven hard...lol

 

I was going to say your dash video was like driving a Yacht. My car was equally bad, went with mostly all racing spec poly bushings and some uprated KYB shocks. Car still doesn't handle like a tank which is to my liking but substantially less boating around bends, can do 80mph on winding country roads with 1 finger on the wheel.

Mostly superflex. https://www.superflex.co.uk/products.php?cat=211 with some polybush red on rear. You will be shocked at how much better poly is, though I believe my Jag mechanic insisted some of the lower front end wishbone bits remain OEM to absorb the damage. Too much transfer causes other bodypanel issues like my recent rear end trailing arm boondoggle.

 

 

That sway bar kit looks, and sounds like exactly what you need, should be able to bring things into perspective rather quickly. You may win your class yet. Well here's hoping. I'm gonna bookmark this, as I'm sure mine will benefit from it as well. 600+ hp will find weak links in the chain rather quickly.

Jack

 

yeah i think the sway bars would make a very noticable difference. even probably just poly bushings like vancoverxj6 mentioned would certainly help. i want to try to keep the suspension somewhat soft because the car is primairly a street car i also feel like the weight transfer front to rear is somewhat beneficial. sway bars should have little effect on ride quality when street driving the car but let it track corners flat.


as far as winning my class i already am in my region...lol cause no one else is competing in my class...lol

i don't really care about winning anyway. im just doing it for fun. the car is quite the handfull with as soft as it is and the amount of power it has almost in some ways makes it funner even if its slowing it down.

probably done autocrossing it for this summer, the event this last weekend was the last one for the year local to me, the rest of the events for this year are all at least a few hour drive away. i still want to try to get it to the drag strip once this year and the nearest 1/4 mile is a 3 hour drive away. already tried to do that once and got rained out... starts getting a little hard to try to make time to do everything. swaybars and shocks will probably be a winter project. hopefully ill probably start collecting parts soon though.